E3 2006: Dead Head Fred Updated Hands-on

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We return to the city of Hope Falls for new impressions.

By Jeff Haynes

We took a brief time out to check on the status of Dead Head Fred at the D3 booth today, and managed to see a couple of new additions since we saw it a week ago. The largest addition to the game was the inclusion of a large number of the game's final textures. Vicious Cycle included 90% of the final textures in the game, making the town of Hope Falls look much more vibrant and twisted. There were also subtle little touches that affected Fred, such as the reconnection of the tubes from his fluid backpack whenever he changes head. Along with these visual and gameplay improvements, there were new noticeable effects such as water distortion that rippled the visual display whenever Fred was in water.

There was also an included combo system that wasn't in the previous build of the game. For example, by placing the corpse head on Fred's body, you could spray a poisonous gas out towards your opponents. If you quickly switched to the stone head and pounded the ground, you could force the gas clouds farther out, making the gas affect more enemies. The demo also introduced players to the first boss of the game, a voodoo priestess named JuJu Judy who walked out with a number of skulls around her waist and a large snake wrapped around her neck. Unfortunately, the demo ended before the fight began.